Turning Tail
by SMKLegacy
Summary: WIP new Ch. 12, 13, & 14. Fate decides one thing, but it’s not the right thing – and help comes in the form of Dr. Sam Beckett. JAGQuantum Leap crossover.
1. Prologue

**Turning Tail – April 29, 2005**

TEASER: Fate decides one thing, but it's not the right thing – and help comes in the form of Dr. Sam Beckett. JAG-Quantum Leap crossover.

DISCLAIMER: Donald Bellisario owns it all except the plot, and even that he gets the lion's share of the credit for. Kudos to the actors who made these two series so beloved, particularly David James Elliot, Catherine Bell, Scott Bakula, and Dean Stockwell.

ARCHIVE: At my own site and with my permission (see my profile for e-mail).

FEEDBACK: …is a winning proposition, but no flames, please. It's hot enough with the pennant race between my beloved RED SOX and the ------ Yankees.

RATING: M

AUTHOR'S NOTE and SPOILERS: The idea popped into my head on vacation when I caught the tail end of an episode of QL – "The Last Door – July 28, 1978". What if the coin landed the wrong way up and changed the fate of not just Harm and Mac but the whole world? The entire JAG canon is at risk; I haven't watched enough QL recently to be comfortable asserting that everything here jives with what was revealed during the series, so please excuse any major gaffes. Many thanks to my brother Howard for being a reliable resource on QL.

**Prologue**

Dr. Sam Beckett felt the familiar nausea of a leap coming on as he cradled the crying girl in his arms. Johnny MacNeill would return to his life, a little confused but hopefully more attuned to the needs of his chronically ill wife and his four children, including little Chelsea, whose life Sam had successfully saved to trigger the leap.

Long practice told him to close his eyes until the nausea settled. When he opened them, he found himself in a bar held in the arms of a Navy captain in mess dress. The company surrounding them included a Marine major general in class A greens; a Navy commander, lieutenant commander, and petty officer, each in summer whites; and a blonde in civilian clothes. Sam looked down to find himself clothed in a shockingly sexy red dress and spike heels that would kill his feet if he had to walk in them.

The lieutenant commander smiled at him. "The bride-to-be will call it."

Sam realized after a heartbeat that everyone was looking at him. Without thinking, he blurted, "Tails."

"Always wanted to do this at the Superbowl," the lieutenant commander said, tossing the coin.

As the coin flipped, Sam wondered what exactly "heads" or "tails" would represent. Perhaps where to go on the honeymoon? Maybe where to have the wedding.

Everyone watched the coin land. The lieutenant commander leaned over and picked it up, careful to show that he hadn't changed its position. "Tails, ma'am, sir." Clearly, he didn't know what to say beyond that.

The man holding Sam sighed, but Sam couldn't tell if it was wistful, sad, resigned, or a bit of all three. "Well, Mac, San Diego, here we come. My mother will be thrilled."

The captain's arms tightened and Sam felt warm lips against his neck. He used to get completely freaked out when a man kissed him, but in the years he had been leaping – sixteen, according to Al, but Sam himself had lost count – he had learned to steel himself against his own reactions. After all, the man holding him didn't know that the woman in his arms wasn't a woman at the moment.

Time to say something. "You don't sound quite as happy."

"The reality of it all is just starting to sink in, Mac. I know that I am an incredibly lucky man to have figured out how to win the heart of the woman I've loved for the past nine years, but I just . . . I don't know. Given a choice between you and the Navy, you win hands down. But I'd like to have it all. I'll get over it."

Praying it was at least a somewhat logical thing to say, Sam replied, "I wish we both could have had it all. And I'd probably be feeling the same way if that coin had landed heads up. Will you excuse me for a moment?"

He released him with another kiss along his neck. "Sure. Hurry back."

"I will."

Sam heard the group alternately congratulating and commiserating with the captain as he made his way as carefully as he could to the ladies' room on the stilts women insisted on calling "sexy high heels." Typical of most bars, it was a single bathroom, but not so typically, at least in his limited experience with women's rooms in bars, it was clean and beautifully appointed with an ivy and lilac décor. He was thankful for the privacy as he closed and locked the door behind him. Then he turned and looked in the mirror.

The woman looking back at him had deep chocolate brown eyes and long brown hair that gleamed in the recessed lighting. She had well-defined arms, nice cleavage, and a figure that just didn't bear thinking about as a man without the proper body to appreciate it. "Oh, boy."


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

Harm watched Mac walk away, admiring her backside more openly than he had ever dared before. It had been so easy to find the right words, finally. Maybe he hadn't been joking when he told her he needed a deadline.

"Well, Captain Rabb, the Navy will be lesser for the loss of your skills, but you look content," General Cresswell said, raising his glass.

"I will be, sir. I'll miss the Navy, but with both of us in the JAG chain of command, one of us had to resign to make our relationship legal."

Something Harm couldn't read crossed the general's face before he spoke. "There are times when the UCMJ is less helpful than it might be. But I understand. You do intend to retire rather than resign?"

Harm laughed. "Well, with only a month and two days until I could take my 20, it would be stupid to resign. Not that I haven't done some stupid things in my life."

He could have sworn that Sturgis, Bud, and Harriet each murmured "Renee Peterson" as they gave him copies of a look patented by AJ Chegwidden: "No shit, Sherlock." Sturgis had never met Renee, but he must have gleaned enough from various stories to join the consensus opinion of that particular debacle in Harm's life. He wondered if they meant the double entendre, as well, or it that was just subconscious on his part. Renee didn't always come off as stupidly in public as she had in private.

Cresswell grinned, a look Harm wasn't too sure he wanted to see all that often. It reminded him of CIA Deputy Director Harrison Kershaw's "I've got you where I want you" look. "Stay for six weeks and I'll get you O-6 retirement."

On the other hand, the extra $415.10 a month would be a nice benefit. "What's the catch, sir?"

"Go to London until I can fill the billet with someone else."

Mac would understand. She had even said that if she were the one resigning, she expected to be kept on active duty until a replacement could be secured, and she told him the same thing would happen if the situation were reversed. He said he doubted it. It wasn't the first time, nor, he was sure, would it be the last, when Mac was right and he was wrong.

"Deal, General."

General Cresswell turned toward Sturgis, who put his hands up and shook his head so hard Harm was tempted to give him a new variation on an old submariner's nickname "Bubblehead": Bobblehead.

"No, sir, I'm not interested in London. My girlfriend will be settled in here for about a year with a great gig and I'm not about to lose the best thing in my life for a change in location, even if it means losing out on a promotion."

Cresswell looked back at Harm. "It may be eight weeks, Captain Rabb."

Harm shrugged. Sturgis had learned a lesson the easy way that had taken him nine years to learn; Harm wasn't going to begrudge his classmate any happiness at all.

"Harm, I am so happy for you!" Harriet threw her arms around him and kissed his cheeks.

He hugged her tight, knowing she had been dreaming of this day almost since before she and Bud got married. "Thanks, Harriet. You and Bud will be good role models for us."

Bud chuckled and claimed his wife by draping an arm around her waist. "That's a fair turn, considering all you and the colonel have done for us, sir."

"It won't be 'sir' after the uniform comes off, Bud. Just remember that. Jennifer?"

"Sir!" She popped to attention.

"Relax, sailor. We may be in uniform, but we're off duty. You ready for San Diego?"

"Yes, sir. I won't be needing this, now." She pulled a rolled of copy of what Harm recognized as an Apartment Hunters Guide out of her purse and flung it toward a trash can in the wait station behind her. "I guess I'd better find out about transferring my college credits. I've got all my basics done and five courses in my major, too. I really don't want to have to redo anything."

"Especially not more basic psych courses," Harm added. "Although when you're taking things like abnormal psychology and family systems theory, I'm sure we'll be just as valuable subjects then as we have been all along."

Jen coughed and turned red. "Yes, sir. Um, no, sir. I think I'll go look for Colonel Mackenzie and make sure she's okay." She turned on her heel and marched away.

"I'm going to miss her." General Cresswell shrugged when Harm looked at him. "She's unique. Call me Monday from your new office, Captain, and have your wife-to-be call me on Sunday morning before she departs for San Diego."

"Aye, sir." Harm extended his hand.

Cresswell took it, then smiled that Kershawesque smile again. "She's going to outrank you, by the way."

"Sir?"

"Just don't get used to ordering her around, Captain." He gave a final pump to their joined hands, let go, and turned to Sturgis for a brief goodbye before he strutted out of the bar.

"San Diego couldn't possibly be a flag billet. Could it?" Harm murmured, he thought to himself.

Sturgis heard him, though. "I doubt it. But I did hear a rumor about a delay in reporting the results of the Marine Corps O-6 board because of a records snafu from Southern Command."

"Mac's not due for her first board until next year, and even then she'd be so low on points in the time in grade field that she'd likely get passed over. She said so herself." Her early promotion to lieutenant colonel had accelerated her promotion track, but not by two full years.

"You weren't due for a captain's billet at all, buddy."

Harm glared at him for a moment, then relented. "You're right. Damn, I'll bet she's on the list and I'll bet it's going to be backdated. Corps lists come out 1 April and 1 October."

"Date of rank again, sorry, Harm. But it's only for another six or eight weeks." Sturgis looked like he wanted to giggle, something he almost never did. "Besides, she's always going to outrank you at home, so why even think about outranking her anywhere else?"

"I'm going to tell Varese you said that."

Sturgis grinned. "Who do you think told me?"

"Varese is a wise woman," Harriet said. "You're an even wiser man for believing her, Commander."

It would be a while before Harriet could relax around Sturgis, Harm knew. Too much had happened between Bud and Sturgis professionally to allow for an easy friendship out of the office, but maybe with both of them staying in DC, things would change.

Bud laughed. "Better to know it going in than to learn it the hard way, sirs. Trust me."

Jen came back. "Colonel Mackenzie will be right out."

Harm ordered another round of drinks, mostly sodas, and listened to his friends chat. It would be a while before they all gathered in the same place again. He found himself missing them already.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

"AL!" Sam shucked the heels so he could pace the small bathroom safely as he waited for his inveterate guide to leaping through time.

Vice Admiral Albert Calavicci materialized beside him in his full dress white uniform. That Al had apparently dressed for the occasion didn't even elicit a smile from Sam.

"Hi, Sam."

"Don't 'Hi, Sam,' me, Al. I'm still not home." There were times he believed that old bar tender's words that Sam himself held the key to getting home. There were times he didn't. Mostly, he did, then he found himself in yet another unfamiliar body trying to save someone's life despite his most fervent hopes otherwise.

The hologram waved his cigar around and punched a few buttons on his ever-present hand-held computer. "No, you're not, and it's a good thing you're not. Remember a while back when I told you the world went to hell in a hand basket?"

"Which time?" He remembered jumping into someone on the morning of September 11, 2001, and feeling helpless when all he could do was save four lives by making a carpool late for their usual train into New York City.

"July 2005."

Sam searched his memory, which was more like a fine authentic Gruyére now than the American knock-off of Swiss it had been when he first started jumping. That didn't always help his recall – Gruyére still had holes, however small – but big things tended to stay in his memory and he was better able to connect dots than he once had been. "Something about a chemical attack on the United Nations?"

Al nodded. "Coordinated attacks on the Secretariat offices in New York, Geneva, Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Santiago, and the International Court of Justice in The Hague on July 7." He punched a few buttons on the computer in his hand. "Ziggy says there's an 87 percent chance you're here to prevent that from happening."

Sam looked back into the mirror. "Not to put too fine a point on this, Al, but how is she . . ."

Al looked him over and gave him two thumbs up around the cigar and the computer. "Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie, 'Mac' to her friends. A Marine Corps lawyer with combat experience in Bosnia, Indonesia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. She's fluent in several languages and is considered a native speaker of Russian and Farsi. According to Ziggy, that coin toss you leaped in on determined that she and the captain out there will be moving to San Diego, where she will be setting up a regional JAG office while he goes into private practice as a criminal defense attorney."

Sam stared at Al. "I have to play a Marine? Al, the closest I've ever been to the military is saving you from . . . whatever it was. You're Navy. That's a far cry from the Marines."

"Not as far as the Air Force is. You've also been a Naval cadet, a Navy SEAL, and an Army medic, but you don't remember any of those. Anyway, Ziggy says that you need to change the outcome of that coin toss."

"Al, I only leap when I've completed a task. I can't exactly go back in time ten minutes to say 'heads' instead of tails." Sometimes, Al's way of delivering news left Sam wanting to strangle him – if he could grasp onto something material to do so.

Al took a drag on his cigar and blew out a perfect smoke ring. That was a new trick, Sam noted as he waited for an answer.

"Okay, so you can't change the coin toss. But you need to convince the captain," Al checked the computer, "Captain Harmon Rabb, Jr., a lawyer and F-18 driver, my kind of guy . . . wait, I think I flew with his father . . ."

"Al!" The heels had come off, but the dress wasn't the most comfortable piece of clothing Sam had ever been required to wear, either. The sooner Al filled him in, the sooner he could get on with the leap.

"Right. Anyway, it says here that Rabb's terminal assignment was seven weeks as. . ." Al stuttered as he translated an obscure military acronym into English as plain as military speak ever got, ". . .the Naval Forces Europe Judge Advocate General in London before he retired with his 20 years and married the colonel."

"I'm still not getting it."

Someone pounded on the door. "Ma'am, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Sam called back. He thought fast. "I just had a wardrobe malfunction." He had no idea why that line made Al laugh so hard.

Or, for that matter, why the woman on the other side of the door spoke through giggles. "Yes, Ma'am, I understand. I'll tell the captain you'll be along shortly."

"Petty Officer First Class Jennifer Coates, soon to be your yeoman in San Diego. The others are Major General Gordon Cresswell, the current Judge Advocate General; Commander Sturgis Turner, an Academy classmate of Rabb's, former submariner, and excellent lawyer; Lieutenant Commander Bud Roberts, Jr., who fought to keep his stellar JAG career after he lost his leg to a landmine in Afghanistan in 2002; and Bud's wife Harriet, who is an inactive reserve lieutenant staying at home to raise the four Roberts children, for whom you and the captain are godparents."

Sam raised his eyebrow. He caught his hostess' reflection out of the corner of his eye and found the corresponding gesture in the mirror disconcertingly alluring. He turned his back to the mirror. "Tight knit family."

"So it seems. There's a lot in these records that's classified, too. Seems that both the colonel and her captain were favorites of the CIA. Which could be why Colonel Mackenzie is so important to stopping the attacks. Today is April 29."

Sam huffed out a breath, ruffling the bangs on his forehead. "Al, we're going to need her help here."

Al's sickly grin unnerved Sam. "Um . . ."

"Al?"

"Sam."

"What happened to Colonel Mackenzie when I leaped into her body?"

Al shuffled his feet and looked anywhere but at Sam, dropping holographic ash from his cigar in piles Sam couldn't see in a future Sam had not yet encountered. "She . . . well, she got violent. Gushie and I had to sedate her."

"Al!"

"I know, I know. But Sam, she's a United States Marine officer. Even without a gun, she's a lethal weapon. We had to do something."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Fine. But wake her up as soon as you can. I can only fake being a female Marine lawyer for so long before I'm going to get her committed or detained."

"Right. Just remember that your goal is to get Colonel Mackenzie and Captain Rabb both assigned permanently to London in time to prevent the attacks on July 7." With that, Al waved his cigar and disappeared.

Sam stared into the space that had always been empty, even when Al was in the room. "Easy for you to say."


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

Sam walked back into the crowd just as the lieutenant commander – Bud? – said, "We're going to call it a night, Captain. We'll see you tomorrow for lunch before you leave?"

The captain – Harmon – stood and took Bud's proffered hand. "You bet. I need to see my godsons and goddaughter before I go."

"That's all we'll hear all morning. 'What time will Aunt Mac and Uncle Harm be here, Daddy?' and 'Are they here yet, Mommy?'" Bud's wife kissed his cheek again. "Make sure Mac calls me in the morning."

Harm. That was important. Harm winked at the blonde. "Yes, ma'am, Harriet, ma'am."

Harriet winked back. "You learn fast, Harm." She turned to Sam. "Mac, you'll have him trained in no time. And make sure he gives you the message from General Cresswell, too. All of it."

Sam looked at Harm. "A message from the general?"

"Tomorrow morning, honey."

Sam couldn't help but smile at the anticipation on Harm's face. Under other circumstances, like if he were inhabiting a man's body and the anticipation were on a woman's face, it would be fun to play with that. He didn't even want to think about what Harm intended to do with Mac tonight – he knew what he would want to do under similar conditions. In all the time he had been leaping, he'd never actually been in a woman's body when . . .

"Mac, honey, are you okay?" Harm's voice took on a gentle, caressing tone.

"I'm fine, Harm. Just tired." And trying desperately to think of a way get out of making love tonight, the irony of which was not at all lost on Sam.

The petty officer looked at her watch. "I guess I should go home to start packing."

"Jen, are you still okay with staying here until Mattie is ready to be moved?"

Al materialized behind Jen and wolf whistled before he gave Sam a quick update over the conversation. "Mattie is Captain Rabb's ward. She's a paraplegic now but in your time is just beginning the long, slow recovery process from a six week coma with full paralysis."

Al disappeared before Sam could even formulate a question, let alone ask one.

"No, ma'am, not at all. It really will be an honor to serve you again in San Diego."

Sam stood up straight and offered his hand in as ladylike a way as he could. "It will be an honor to have you aboard, Petty Officer. Take care of Mattie."

"Yes, ma'am. I'll check in on her everyday now that she'll be at Bethesda rather than all the way out in Blacksburg."

"Thanks. We'll get you out of here as soon as we can."

Sam saw Jen relax at those words before she said her goodbyes and left the bar. For a moment, everyone was quiet, then Harm pulled Sam back into his arms.

The meaningful look the African American commander sent Sam's way made him wonder just what had transpired between Mac and her fellow officer. "I'll get going so you two can . . . go do whatever it is that you're going to do to celebrate, which I'm sure will solve a lot of problems."

Sam inhaled and once again prayed that his non-committal answer would assuage . . . what a time for a blank mind. "Let's hope."

"Sturgis, good luck, man. We'll see you at the wedding?"

Sturgis. Sturgis grinned from ear to ear. "Like I'd miss that historic event. I'll be calling Keeter on my way to the car to start planning the bachelor party."

Harm paled and let go of Sam. "Oh, my God."

Sturgis pulled Harm into a "man hug". Grin still firmly in place, he warned, "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

"Oh, I am. Just don't corrupt Bud in the process, okay?"

Sturgis smiled at Sam. "What, you don't think your wife-to-be would appreciate another round of rescue the barbarians from jail? I'm betting the admiral would enjoy it more now than he did then, seeing as he's retired."

It was times like this during leaps that Sam most wished he retained the memories of the person into whose life he had been dumped. There had to be a very funny story there, if only he could get someone to tell it.

"Yes, but do you want to be the one to get a Marine general thrown in jail? It was bad enough with AJ."

"I can imagine."

"Sturgis, you really had to be there. And don't forget, what goes around comes around, and I'm hearing wedding bells in your future . . ." Harm let the silence speak for itself.

"He's a menace, Mac." He leaned in to kiss Sam's cheek. "Please, take Vukovic."

Just the way Sturgis said the name tipped Sam off to something unpleasant, but Harm's expression of utter disgust made it clear that Mac's answer would be not only no but, "Hell, no."

"I'll pay you."

"Sturgis, Vukovic is your problem. Don't you think Harm will be enough for me?"

Harm's lips flattened into a long-suffering grimace as Sturgis laughed.

"Game, set, and match to the colonel. Good night and safe travels, you two."

Sturgis sauntered off. Sam watched and wished that he could attend that bachelor party as a man, prompting a sigh.

"You really are tired. Let's go home."

Sam felt his forehead wrinkle in confusion and wondered what that looked like on Mac's face. "Whose?" He had no clue where Harm lived. Or where Mac lived, for that matter.

Harm obviously thought he was poking fun. "Damn. The hotel, then. Did I give you your key?"

Sam opened the small red purse beside him on the bar. "No. So much has happened I'm not sure you even told me the hotel."

Harm smiled as he fished inside his jacket and came out with a slim wallet. "Here you go. It's a B&B at 16th and R near Dupont Circle – Jacuzzi tub and king size bed." He handed over a traditional key and a parking tag with the name and address of the inn.

"I'm impressed."

"We got lucky. A last minute cancellation. I'll be there in about an hour. I was afraid I was running late, so I didn't put my suitcases in my car."

Sam had no idea whether there were suitcases in Mac's car or not. And if not, he wouldn't know where to go to get them until he could get a look at her driver's license. Then he realized that she might have a license issued by her state of residence – but he would worry about that when he was alone.

Sam imagined his own wife in her sultry sex goddess mode and hoped his attempt at flirtation didn't come out as a bad imitation of Jack Lemmon in _Some Like It Hot._ Why he could remember not only the plot of _Some Like It Hot_ but the stars and several good lines from it as well remained a mystery as inexplicable as women. "Well, then you need to go take care of that, don't you, Captain Rabb?"

"Yes, I do, Lieutenant Colonel Mackenzie." He opened his arms.

Sam stepped into them.

"I love you, Sarah."

Sam couldn't explain the sudden warmth that swept through his body at the depth of emotion in Harm's voice. "I love you, Harm." At least he could assume from that warmth that Mac loved Harm.

He always hoped that when he fathered Sammy Jo as Will Kinman, he had felt something like this soothing tide of calm that enveloped him even as Harm kissed his forehead and let go. Sammy Jo herself was a ragged memory hanging by a thread from a leap over a decade ago, but thoughts of her still warmed him.

"If I kiss you now, we won't get back to the inn."

Sam could remember that feeling, having leaped into his own life twice in the years between his marriage to Donna and his first leap. He had never been himself, but he had seen his past self looking at Donna the way Harm looked at the woman he loved. Who just happened to be a man for the moment.

Sam pushed the confusion out of his head. "We can't have that. The sooner you go, the sooner you'll be at the hotel."

"Gotta pay the bar tab. Joanna!" Harm smiled at Sam. "Go on, get settled. I'll call Mattie from the car and be there as quick as I can."

Sam kissed his cheek, picked up the handbag, and, as he was quite sure his hostess would really do, put on a show as he walked out in those ridiculously high heels. He had an hour to figure out how not to have sex tonight.

Oh, boy.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

"Where the hell am I and who the hell are you? Sir!" Mac only just managed to spit out the last word as she took in the clinic-like room around a headache that went all the way to her toes.

"Where you are is a lot harder to explain than who I am." The admiral in front of her waved his cigar around over his head, reminding her of an annoying habit of Secretary of the Navy Sheffield. "Vice Admiral Albert Calavicci, at your service, Colonel Mackenzie."

Mac looked down, expecting to see her class A uniform. Instead, she saw the red dress she had bought years ago to wear on her first date with Harm.

Harm! Her head pounded at the thought of him in trouble.

"Where's my fiancé?" Saying the word "fiancé" out loud lowered the pounding in her head a little as she realized the implications.

The admiral looked away. "'When' might be a better question about both you and your fiancé."

"What?"

"No, that's not at issue. Your fiancé is definitely Captain Harmon Rabb, Jr."

It might have been funnier if it weren't so surreal and her head didn't hurt so much. "I thought they stripped all flag officers of their sense of humor when the first star went on the shoulder boards."

The admiral turned back to her with a smile. "That's better. And just so you know, they try, but if you resist just a little, they back off."

She studied him for a moment as he alternately pulled on his cigar and blew out smoke rings. "Admiral Calavicci?"

He stopped the cigar midway to his mouth, apparently waiting for her to say something more. Then he said, "Yes," and went back to puffing and blowing smoke.

Mac's mind whirled at top speed for thirteen seconds before bits and pieces of ancient scuttlebutt began to filter into a picture, or, more accurately, a well-constructed if never verified rumor. "Are you part of some black op exploring time travel? Operation Wave Jump or something like that?"

Calavicci folded his arms across his chest, letting the cigar dangle over his outer arm, its ashes falling to the floor as it burned untended. "You have way too much information for a JAG officer with no connection to the Bureau of Naval Research and Development."

"So this," Mac waved her arm around, "is Operation Wave Jump?"

He sighed. "For what it's worth, it's Project Quantum Leap."

"For what it's worth, in my time, you're only a rear admiral." She saw his chin jut out and recognized an incoming flag tirade. She held up her hand to placate him and waited for his chin to drop before she went on. "I know, your name isn't on the active admiralty roster. But I've been the JAG liaison to the Admiralty Review Board for the past six years. I've seen the whole list." Including a few others that she had believed retired and moved on to more political arenas. In the 21st century, intelligence needs far outweighed diplomatic concerns.

When he didn't say anything, she continued. "On your projected career track, you were due for a promotion board review in 2007, ten years after the initial funding for the Navy's participation in the project. At the extraordinarily advanced age of 73."

He nodded and dragged at his cigar for a long moment, blowing out two lopsided smoke rings before he commented. "A dirty little secret of the military. Once you reach 40 years, active duty and retirement pay are the same, so Congress tends to turn a blind eye." He stuck the cigar back in his mouth.

"What year is it?"

"I can't tell you that, Colonel," he said around the cigar.

Mac took a step toward him. "You look about 10 years older than the current picture I saw in your file. That makes this 2014 or 2015, right?"

"No wonder the CIA likes you." He took the cigar out and motioned for her to follow him.

Her high heels clacked across the dark tile floor as she followed him through a series of automatic doors into what appeared to be a command and control center. Three technicians looked up, surprise evident on their faces when they spotted her, but each went back to indecipherable tasks after a few seconds.

"I've just broken every rule in the Project Quantum Leap manual, at least six provisions of the National Security Act, and three articles of the UCMJ." Admiral Calavicci pointed toward the front of the room.

"Two, actually."

"Two what?"

"Articles of the UCMJ. I could prosecute on 892.92, Failure to obey order or regulation, based on your requirement to be in compliance with the National Security Act, and on 897.97, Unlawful detention, based on my being held here against my will without cause."

Calavicci's drawn smile made him truly look the age she believed him to be – 80. "They added a new capital article in 2008. 935.35, Failure to protect a national security interest or asset."

"Oh." What else could she say?

"Put this on." He handed her a small cordless microphone, which she clipped to her dress as he picked up what looked like a PDA and pressed a couple of buttons.

A hologram appeared in the center of the room. The only word Mac could summon at the sight was "bizarre." A handsome man with salted sandy brown hair hung suspended in mid-air in a seated position, wearing her dress and her shoes. With a start, she realized he was sitting in her Corvette, although she could not see the car at all.

"Al, do me a favor and sit down in a low chair."

Admiral Calavicci shrugged and kicked his foot out to snag a chair from under a console. "Right. I forget how unnerved you get when I pace through a car." He sat down. "Better?"

Sam, whoever he was, turned his head away from them to the right, which apparently meant that Al had seated himself in the passenger seat despite his location in the physical world. "Not perfect, but it will do."

Mac had encountered a number of very strange things in her life. What she now understood with horrifying clarity upended everything she knew about physics and took everything else in her brain with it for twenty seven seconds before Admiral Calavicci called her name.

"Uh, sorry, sir." She took a deep breath and pointed at the hologram. "He's . . . he's on April 29, 2005, isn't he?"

Calavicci looked her over. "Yes, he is."

"Al, who is that?" The back of Sam's head bobbed as he waited for an answer.

"Colonel Mackenzie. She's a damned site smarter than anyone else we've had here since . . . well, since that biologist whose cloned human embryos you managed to destroy before the super virus could break out of the lab. She put two and two together and divided by pi times MC squared to come up with the right answer. After that, I didn't see any practical point in keeping her on the periphery."

"Admiral, who is that?" Mac asked, pointing at the hologram again.

Heaving a sigh, Calavicci slumped in his chair. "Dr. Sam Beckett, physicist and designer of Project Quantum Leap. Long story short, and we still don't know how after 16 years, Sam has inhabited your body in the mid evening of April 29, 2005 and you, in your entirety, are here with me on the late afternoon of February 14, 2015."

"Poor Harm. He must be traumatized." She was.

From the past, Sam chuckled. "Colonel, I promise you that I will do my best to make sure he doesn't really figure it out. Kids are a problem, though."

"Why?" That seemed the easiest question to ask, though she thought she sounded like a three year old.

This time, the Admiral chuckled. "If they still believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, they can see Sam rather than you and they can see me. People with unusual mental abilities can often see us, too."

Feeling a little more anchored, Mac took a deep breath. "That may explain more than my intelligence. I have an inerrant internal clock and have had visions that saved lives, including Harm's."

"Internal clock?" Sam asked from 2005. She hadn't known him for 47 seconds but she could tell the idea scared him.

"Infallible. I can tell you the time in any time zone I'm in to within a second. It's 1653 now."

Admiral Calavicci checked his watch. "She's right. And we're in the middle of a cave in New Mexico."

Sam shook his head. "I can't do that. How obvious is it going to be?"

Mac smiled as best she could in this bizarre circumstance. "With Harm? If he's distracted enough, he won't notice. But you will have to be the timekeeper because he's the late for his own funeral kind of guy." She put her hand to her mouth in realization of something vital. "Dr. Beckett, you're going to need to get the battery replaced in that watch I'm wearing ASAP."

The hologram looked down at her wrist, which was unnerving to watch. "Al, what do I do until then?"

"Hold on, Sam. Ziggy's working on it."

The solution came as quickly as the problem. "Just make sure you have my cell phone with you. I clip it to my left hip whenever I'm in casual clothes. It can wait until I . . . you . . . whatever . . . until San Diego."

Sam relaxed against her driver's seat. "Al, I like talking directly to her. Can we find ways to make National Security an issue in every leap?"

Admiral Calavicci's cigar fell to the floor.

"I'll take that as a no. Colonel, since I have the luxury, I need to ask you about some things. Like, where do you live?"

"Please, if you're going to be borrowing my body, the least you can do is call me Mac." She gave him her address and walked him through using her GPS navigation system. "Make sure you take it out and hand carry it with you to California on Sunday. We'll need it." What an odd thing to say, she thought.

"I will. What do I need to know to um . . ." Sam blushed.

She understood Sam's unspoken question. "Admiral, can I talk to him privately?"

Admiral Calavicci didn't look happy about it, but he ordered Ziggy to pipe the audio into the private conference room off the control center. "Let's go, Colonel." He extended his hand toward a door in the far corner.

"Admiral, at the risk of violating article 889.89, when I said 'privately', I meant 'privately.'" She brushed by him and marched across the floor to the door, hoping it would slide open and save her the embarrassment of walking straight into it. It did.

Sam pointed out the irony of their situation. "In here, you and I can hear each other but can't see each other. Al and I can see each other but not hear each other out there. That pretty much sums up my life over the past 16 years, Mac."

She found herself liking Sam. "I can't begin to imagine, Sam. You wanted to talk about Harm, right?"

His blush rose again. "Just give me the Cliff Notes version of your relationship, Mac. I really don't want to blow this for you. He loves you."

"I love him." She started to giggle. "I'm afraid the Cliff Notes are the length of a Harlequin Romance and a lot harder to follow, Sam."

"How long have you been together?" His disembodied voice had a gentle, friendly tone.

Mac sighed. "Eight years, three months, and 26 days, but who's counting?" She thumped down on the six-person conference table and kicked her shoes off. "It took us until noon today to figure out how to admit to each other that we've been in love for at least four of those years, probably seven and maybe even all eight, if we were truly honest."

She spelled out the most important episodes – meeting in the Rose Garden, Annie, Dalton, Chris, finding out what happened to his father in Russia, the baby deal, Sergei, Jordan, Harm's return to flying, Mic, Renee, Harm's crash and the wedding that wasn't, Afghanistan, Singer's murder and Harm's trial. Sam interrupted her narration of the events in Paraguay when her cell phone rang in the console; she sensed his relief when it was Harm saying he would be half an hour later than he expected because of issues with Mattie's move to Bethesda tomorrow morning. She picked up her story and told him about Webb, Sadik, and finally her endometriosis. Even keeping to headlines and taglines, it took her an hour and Sam was already unpacking the small suitcase Mac had packed for her two nights at the hotel when she was finished.

She wondered what her – his – face showed when he spoke after a full minute of silence. "So, you two have never actually made love?"

"Sam, before noon today, counting mouth-to-mouth on the _Watertown _as a very generous addition to the list, we had kissed a grand total of four times. Once, Harm thought I was someone else. Once, it was a good-bye kiss at my engagement party. And the last time, it was under the mistletoe at a party." She sighed. "Tonight would have been very special."

"That's the main reason I wanted to talk to you without Al hanging luridly on every word. How can I let him down easily? I mean, it's not fair that you wouldn't get to be here for your first time, and, let's face it, I get queasy just thinking about being in a woman's body when . . . just, yech."

Mac got a startling, somewhat appalling image in her head. "So, even though you've leaped into women before, you've never had sex as a woman?"

"No!" Sam groaned. "Just the thought is enough to make the wet bar seem like a good investment."

Mac straightened herself to her full height even though he couldn't see her and put on her best Marine Corps command voice. "Dr. Beckett, if you put one drop of alcohol into my body while you inhabit it, I will end your leaping days forever." She hoped she never got used to using such mixed pronouns to refer to herself.

Sam was silent for twenty three seconds. "Yes, ma'am. Understood. But about the other thing?"

"If you can stand a massage, which my body could use even if your mind isn't quite ready for it, tell Harm I'm having cramps and a little bleeding from the stress of everything. Just act like you have a horrible backache and stomach cramps, it should convince him. He'll hover, but he will back right off the amorous behavior." She knew that about her sailor – solicitous to a fault, he would pamper her body with loving care without pressing his own desires upon her.

"He'll be bitterly disappointed. I would be."

"Are you married, Sam?"

"Yes."

She could hear the longing in his voice and knew this was the right tack. "If your wife was in pain, what would you do?"

He snorted. "Everything in my power to make her feel better. Point taken. He's here. Talk to you later, Mac."

She wasn't sure if he heard her say, "Later, Sam."


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

Harm heard Mac's voice as he approached the door, but he couldn't make out any words. He wasn't surprised to see Mac putting her cell phone away when he opened the door to their room.

She looked so incredibly sexy, standing there in her bare feet, and that red dress that might as well have been pure testosterone injected right into his carotid for the way it made him want her, right then and there. "You said half an hour, Harm. It was thirty six minutes."

He could tell by her tone that she wasn't annoyed, just amused as she usually was at his inability to get anywhere on time. "That's the six minutes it took for me to get myself cooled off enough to focus on Mattie after I got off the phone with you."

"Flatterer." She smiled at him the way he always saw her smiling in his dreams. Saucy, sexy, and impudent, with just a touch of vulnerability that begged to be scorched away by kisses and caresses. But the wince that followed reminded him far too much of the agony he had seen on her face last spring, and of the pain she sometimes endured during her period despite the best efforts of her doctor to control the endometriosis.

He dropped his bags inside the door and kicked it closed before he went to her and wrapped his arms around her from behind. "Sore?"

Mac nodded. "Cramps and bleeding. Worse than in a while." She sucked in a breath and doubled over his arms before she let out a sob.

All thoughts of making love to her went temporarily dormant at that heart wrenching sound. "Hey, sweetheart, it's okay. Whatever it is, we'll deal. Together."

She turned in his arms and laid her head against his chest. "Oh, Harm. I want this so much tonight, but I just can't."

He knew from his reading that symptoms could appear at any time, and he knew from observation that Mac was particularly susceptible to pain when her stress level went up. As disappointed as he felt at not being able to consummate their relationship after more than eight tortured years, he wasn't surprised that the stress had finally gotten to her. "I know. I can see it in your posture. Is that what took you so long back at McMurphy's?"

She sighed and snuggled into his chest a little more. "Yeah. I didn't want to put a damper on the evening."

He chuckled. "The only damper would have been you not being there, Mac. How about a bubble bath in that Jacuzzi in there and then a good backrub to help you relax?"

"Sounds heavenly." She looked up at him. "Have I told you lately that I love you?"

"Not in person, but you did say something to that effect over the phone a little while ago." He gave her a chaste kiss on the lips. "I love you. More than I ever thought it possible to love another person."

He felt her relax a little more. It would take time and patience, but he would prove to her that nothing in the world was worth more to him than her.

As a start, he laid her on the king-sized bed and went in to draw a bath for her. He wanted to join her in the tub. Hell, he wanted to join _with_ her so badly he ached, but he knew his pain would pass while hers would be with her for most of her life, in one form or another, so with another stern warning to his libido, he flipped the switch on the jets and adjusted the water temperature.

She surprised him when she leaned over to kiss the top of his head. The gesture seemed so domestic, so normal, that he couldn't help but grin up at her from the edge of the sunken tub.

"I decided to save the lingerie for another night," she said, her lips twisted into a pained grin.

He took in her whole body, from messily upswept hair to shockingly red toenails. Her long, lithe legs looked even longer under the FLY NAVY t-shirt she wore, which hung off her chest and shoulders in a casual, comfortable droop.

"You're still exquisite." He had seen Mac bloodied and filthy and known her to be beautiful even then. He had yet to find the word that captured her fully and doubted he ever would.

She blushed. "Thank you."

He stood up and took her into his arms, gathering her to his shoulder. He nuzzled her hair with his chin, marveling in the safety of her arms. "I love you." And he loved how she melted against him. He could stand like this forever.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For finally telling me. For loving me. For being here." She giggled. "For drawing my bath, which is getting cold."

He chuckled. "Right. Your masseur will await your pleasure at the conclusion of your soak." He didn't move.

"Harm?"

"Yes?"

"In order for me to get into the tub, you have to let go."

He heard laughter in her voice. "I know. Give me a minute. I'm absorbing this pore by pore."

He chuckled as he hung up his uniform in his garment bag. It might very well be their wedding night before they actually made love, since he didn't think they were going to have the chance to visit each other before the day. Which they needed to set before he left.

Good thing his training as a fighter pilot equipped him to handle high speed maneuvers!


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6 **(30 April 2005)

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

Sam had no clue what to make of the bald man across the table from him. He would have loved to have gotten more information from Mac or even Al about him before breakfast, but Mac had refused to let Al watch as Sam showered this morning and Al had pulled the plug on Mac's microphone in retaliation. So other than the bits and pieces Mac had imparted last night, AJ Chegwidden was a blank slate.

"You look happy, Mac." Chegwidden sipped at his coffee.

"I am, sir. Very."

"I hear a 'but' coming, Mac."

Sam sighed. "It's just . . . if life were more fair, both of us could keep our careers."

Chegwidden sat back in his chair and nestled his chin in the palm of his hand. "Whose idea was it for one of you to leave the service?"

That was actually a very good question. Guessing from the conversation last night, Sam inhaled and said, "Harm's."

"I figured. For a man who doesn't understand what a box is, he tends to think inside one unless he can win a dogfight or a trial."

Sam chuckled at that observation. It fit with what Mac had told him and what little he had observed. "I couldn't come up with a logical alternative, sir."

"AJ, Mac, AJ. And I'm sure you would have had you had more time. Harm's already on his second career in the Navy, but you've got a lot of options to pursue if you're willing to take some risks."

Sam's ears perked up. This could be the start of the road to London and the end of the leap. "How so, si- AJ?"

Harm reappeared from his restroom run just then, shutting down the conversation. "That will teach me to have coffee before I leave the house."

"You never had coffee before you left the house?" AJ's voice rose an octave in apparent surprise.

Harm laughed. "That would have made me even later."

Sam guessed at something, hoping it wouldn't be too out of place. "Woe betide the man or woman who stands between Harm and the office coffee maker in the mornings."

"Yes. I believe Tiner mentioned getting run over a few times."

Their server came to take orders just then. Sam somehow wasn't surprised that Harm passed on the first go around. He was surprised at the looks his order of the fruit and cottage cheese plate received from the two men.

"You really aren't feeling good, are you? I've never seen you order a healthy breakfast, honey. Or lunch or dinner, for that matter."

"I heard you poured half a bottle of syrup on your French toast when you had breakfast with Gordon."

Sam felt his face flush. "It was only a third of a bottle, there were four pieces of Texas toast, and it was in the cafeteria." He had no idea how he knew that, but he did. Just another oddity of leaping.

AJ smirked and waved at the server. "My point exactly. Care to change your order, Colonel?"

"Belgian Deluxe, eggs over easy. Bacon and sausage." He saw the server's deathly glare but chose to ignore it. Mac must have the metabolism of a hummingbird, given the approving grins he saw on his companions' faces.

The rest of breakfast felt like a history class as he listened to Harm and Chegwidden reminisce about their years at JAG together. A very funny history class, to be sure, and thankfully neither of them seemed worried that he – Mac – wasn't contributing much to the conversation except laughter.

Then it was time to say goodbye to a man who had obviously been a father figure to both Mac and Harm. Sam imagined that Chegwidden's retirement party had been less emotional only because it had apparently been a very formal military function.

Chegwidden extended his hand to Harm. "Harm, so help me, if you do anything to hurt her, I'll be first in line to hurt you."

"I don't doubt it, sir." Harm reciprocated.

To Sam, it seemed like a pissing contest for a moment as to which man could squeeze harder.

"We'll see you at the wedding?" Harm asked, finally letting go.

Chegwidden snorted. "Like I'd miss the social event of the century." He turned toward Sam and looked at the woman he thought was Mac expectantly.

What had Mac said about the wedding that wasn't and what she wanted to do this time the same and differently? Sam cleared his throat to buy some time as he searched his Gruyére memory. "Sir, um, AJ?"

"Mac."

"Would you give me away? For real this time?"

The smile that overtook Mac's former commanding officer's face told Sam that his question was the right one. "It's about damned time, Mac."

"I know, sir." Sam smiled and stepped into his waiting arms.

"Call me from San Diego. About the other." Chegwidden didn't quite whisper in Sam's left ear, away from Harm's hearing.

"I will." That was one promise Sam knew he would keep, and one he was making for himself as much as for Mac.

Harm was quiet as he drove them to Bethesda to meet Mattie.

"Penny for your thoughts, Harm."

"It's a dime now, Mac. Inflation."

"I'll give you two nickels."

He glanced at Sam with a small grin. "Done. I'm still processing everything. It's still overwhelming."

Sam grinned back. "Yet another reason not to have mind-blowing sex last night. You have to be functional at 0300 East Coast time on Monday morning."

Harm laid his hand on Sam's leg. "I'm just glad you're feeling better today. Talk to my mom when you get to San Diego. She's bound to have a good massage therapist."

"Absolutely, since mine's going to be 5,489 miles away." Sam gave Harm a lot of credit. The backrub last night had been the best Sam could remember in anyone's life. And just how had he known how far away San Diego is from London? He was fairly certain that had never mattered in any previous leap.

"Even this," he waved at the space between their seats, "is too much right now. I love you."

"I love you. We'll be fine, Harm. Everything will work out for the best, you'll see." Especially if Sam could stop the attacks on the UN.

"I know. It would be bad enough leaving either you or Mattie behind, but both of you . . ."

Sam captured Harm's hand on his leg and let the silence be supportive for the rest of the drive.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

Al Calavicci had endured a tough night of partying with his wife of 51 years, their four daughters, three sons-in-law and one daughter-in-law (at least in Massachusetts, California, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island) before he arrived at the Project Quantum Leap headquarters deep in the desert of New Mexico on the morning of February 15, 2015. It had been quite a Valentine's Day extravaganza – and a secondary anniversary milestone – and his head hurt to prove it.

So much so, in fact, that he had completely forgotten that the most recent hostess of Sam's whatever it was that was leaping through time – Al preferred the Vulcan term "katra" from _Star Trek III_ – had figured out far more than was truly good for her or the project. He was thus so startled that he fell flat on his ass when said hostess greeted him with a full Marine, "Good morning, sir!" as he opened the door to the control room.

The techs snickered but didn't look toward him. He wondered why for a moment, but then realized that Lt. Col. Mackenzie was far more important than what his staff thought of him.

"Good morning, Colonel. Did you sleep well?" He figured he would start talking before he got himself off the floor.

The shapely brunette scowled down at him and made no effort to help him up. "No, sir."

"I'm sorry. We can get a different bed for you or change the temperature-"

"With all due respect, sir, I don't think I'll sleep well again until I'm back in 2005 where I belong."

Al pondered this while he scrabbled around to find leverage and push himself upright. Luckily for the silk in his pants, the floor was spotless. "Right. Well, Colonel, we have our work cut out for us today. We need to comb the archives for all the information we can wrangle on the perpetrators of the UN chemical attacks so we can start feeding Sam the essentials ASAP." He beckoned her to follow him through a set of sliding doors into a vast old fashioned library.

"Archives?"

He could fall in love with her eyebrow, the way it went up and down to telegraph her moods. "It's a hologram. The room isn't really much bigger than the conference room on the other side, but I like the effect."

"Like a holodeck?"

Al smiled. "Exactly like a holodeck. It even works the same way. Twenty eight years ago on TV, it was special effects. Today, it's reality." He watched her as she looked around. "Go ahead, take a walk. I'll be here when you get back."

That was self-serving; he just wanted to ogle her backside as she sashayed around in that glorious red dress. Her front side wasn't bad, either, as she came back a few moments later. Just because he'd been married for 51 years didn't mean he couldn't appreciate a beautiful woman when he saw her.

"I am impressed, Admiral."

"Good. Now, let's get to work, shall we?"

She gave him a little smile. "What, do I just say, 'Computer, search for all entries related to the UN attacks on July 7, 2005' and wait for it to spit the whole thing out?"

Al shook his head. "We haven't gotten there yet. Let's see . . . you've used Google, I'm sure?"

"All the time. And Lexis-Nexis, WestLaw, and several other on-line services."

"Then this will be easy, at least to obtain the information. Sifting through it, well, that will be the hard part." He ushered her to a seat in front of a flat panel display and mini-keyboard. "The Internet is just bigger than in your time. Let's get some basic information first."

He had her search the on-line archives of several news organizations for the event and the aftermath.

"No investigative material?" That eyebrow went up again and he almost leaned over to kiss it.

"Not yet. I want to see what you can figure out from that first given what's happened already in your time."

"Okay."

He sat watching her, cataloguing her expressions of outrage, confusion, concern, sorrow, and discovery as she skimmed page after page of text, highlighting passages and phrases with a red pen from the desk. He had only seen one other person read as quickly as Mac: Sam.

An hour passed without either of them speaking. Mac looked up at him when she got to the bottom of the last page. "This smells like al-Qaeda. With some help from several unsavory characters in legitimate governments."

Al smiled. "Which unsavory characters in what governments?"

Mac considered for a full minute. "The head of secret intelligence in Syria, the finance minister in Kazakhstan, at least one immigration official in Belarus, and the deputy defense minister for arms acquisition in Turkmenistan. There are probably officials from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan involved, as well, and I bet the US worked very hard to cover up any involvement by Iraqi interim government officials."

"Wow." Al sat back and studied Mac for several seconds. He propped his chin on his hand and wished for a cigar, but he had been the one who prohibited smoking in the archives. "That's only four days worth of coverage, Colonel. You could have saved the UN the 10 billion dollars it spent to investigate that part of the event. Who should Sam be looking for?"

"That's a little more complicated, sir." She pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. The gesture made Al's heart skip a beat.

"How so?"

"First of all, I wouldn't have a reason to be investigating anyone unless a connection came up in an ongoing investigation or trial. Second of all, at least in America, we have a Department of Homeland Security that's supposed to be watching out for suspects, and Sam can't just give them an anonymous tip to tell them to look out for men and women carrying Belarusian passports."

"So how do we get you into Naval Intelligence or back working with the CIA?"

"I will not be going back to the CIA as me or as Sam, thank you very much."

"What about Naval Intelligence?"

She crossed her arms. "It would have to be for a damned good reason."

"To keep Captain Rabb in the Navy? To save ten thousand lives? For God and country?"

"All of the above?" Her small smile told him he had scored.

"I'd say, 'Good girl,' if you weren't a Marine."

"I'll take that as a very back-handed compliment."

He smiled what he had always called his "Flyboy" smile and hoped it came close to the one he was sure Harmon Rabb, Jr., had inherited from the man he thought he remembered flying with. He made a note to look that up before long. "It was meant as one. The question remains, though, how do we get you into Naval Intelligence? I think that would end the leap."

Mac sat back with a sigh. "Would I remember anything I've learned, though?"

"We could work it out so that Sam leaves you really good notes."

"Then I guess we start with AJ Chegwidden."

"I know him. He's . . . go on. Why AJ?" No need to tell her more than she needed to for the purposes of getting the leap completed. That AJ Chegwidden was the Vice President of the United States was far more than she needed to know.

She pushed herself up and started to pace, her high heels shushing across the carpet. "The retired admiral's club has a lot of pull in the Pentagon for officers they've mentored along the way. Chegwidden also has pull with the SecDef, even if they butted heads more often than not. And I have the feeling that he had a plan to deal with an open relationship between Harm and me a long time ago and kept it updated as the years went by."

"We'll tell Sam. I should check in with him."

Mac shook her head. "We shouldn't bother him until after 4 his time."

"Why not?"

"Bethesda, the toy store, and then lunch with 4 kids. Didn't he say that kids and animals can usually tell he's not who he really is?" She wrinkled her nose. "That's not . . . I don't . . . you know what I meant, right?"

Al laughed. "Yeah, Colonel, I did." He winked. "And I think dropping in for lunch just might be fun."


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

Mattie's Angel Flight was just landing as Sam and Harm arrived at the helo pad on the grounds of Bethesda Naval Medical Center. The first words out of Mattie's mouth when the orderlies had wheeled her gurney away from the whirling blades made Harm laugh uproariously.

"That was wicked cool!"

"You're not thinking of bagging jets for choppers, are you?" Harm bent over and hugged his ward, placing a kiss on her forehead around the metal frames of her traction halo.

Mattie shot a deep frown toward Sam. He thought perhaps the young woman was starting to come to grips with the possibility that she might be paralyzed in some way for life.

Her words, however, were upbeat. "Hey, I'm good enough to do both, hotshot."

"You sure are, kiddo. Let's get you inside and settled, shall we?"

"Not until I get a hug from my mother-to-be."

Sam wondered if the warm flush he felt was his own or a vestige of Mac in the body. Either way, the pleasant sensation left him lightheaded as he switched places with Harm and leaned down to put his arms around the girl who had, in a way, been responsible for bringing back the friendship between Harm and Mac.

"Thank you," Sam whispered in Mattie's ear.

"You're welcome. And thank you for wanting Harm's baggage."

Now would be an appropriate time to use her full name, if it would come to him . . . He straightened up and shoved his finger under her nose, trying to be stern. "Mathilda Grace Johnson, you take that back."

Mattie grinned. "Yes, ma'am. Gotcha."

Harm sighed. "Mattie . . ."

"Sorry, Mac."

Five minutes and seven seconds later by the cell phone, they arrived on the proper floor and were met by the nurse manager. "I'm Captain Aramo. Welcome to my rehab unit, Miss Grace."

"Thank you, ma'am." Mattie gave the woman a big smile.

"Captain Rabb, you're Miss Grace's legal guardian?"

Harm straightened beside Sam. "Yes, ma'am."

"And I understand we have a unique circumstance here with transfers."

"Yes, ma'am." Harm looked overwhelmed. His mouth barely moved as he gave his two word answers and the lines around his eyes deepened in the harsh fluorescent lighting around the nurses' station.

Aramo smiled. "Relax, Captain. We deal with unique circumstances all the time. Not necessarily with minors, but unique circumstances nonetheless."

Harm relaxed a fraction but shot Sam a wary glance.

"It will be fine, Harm," he said, laying a hand on Harm's arm.

Aramo looked down at Mattie's chart. "You must be Lt. Colonel Mackenzie."

Sam willed himself not to snap to attention, knowing that Harm would detect a lack of crispness to the movement that Mac would neither show nor tolerate in others. Mac was a Marine, even if Sam was about as far from one as he could be. "Yes, ma'am."

"I see you're going to start the process of adopting Miss Grace together as soon as you get married. Do we have a target date to have her in a wheelchair for most of a day?" Sam thought he saw the woman's lips twitch in what might have become a smile in another moment if Mattie hadn't tried to answer her question.

"Harm's flight leaves at 6 tonight."

The twitch became a roaring laugh that caught all of them up in its charm. When Aramo could talk again, she gave Mattie the grin Sam had expected a moment ago. "You've got the right attitude, Miss Grace. Hold on to it. Captain, Colonel, if you'll give us a few minutes, we'll get Miss Grace settled in her room and then get the supervising therapist and her neurologist here for the evaluation." She pointed toward a colorful waiting area. "The coffee over there is most likely Marine strength right now because of who's on the ward visiting, but help yourself."

Harm put his hand in the small of Sam's back and with a nod of thanks to Aramo and a wink at Mattie that made her giggle, led Sam to a chair in the waiting area. "Coffee, hon?"

"Please." Mac took her coffee so strong the spoon would stand up in it, or so AJ had commented at breakfast when he said that the only good coffee ever made in the office came at Mac's hands. Sam personally would have killed for a cup of coffee with cream and real sugar, but that rarely happened in leaps anymore.

He steeled his taste buds for the bitter, acrid brew when Harm handed him the Styrofoam cup. He took a swig. "Ew-ha," he said to Harm's raised eyebrow.

Harm added five sugars and a five-count of powdered creamer to his cup and stirred it well before he took an experimental sip.

Sam laughed at the expression on Harm's face as he turned back to the counter and added two more sugars and an additional four count of creamer to his cup.

Harm's second sip pleased him more. "We'll be keeping both coffee makers."

"One for the Marines and one for the Navy," Sam said, thinking it sounded like a very Mac-like thing to say.

"Exactly." He sat down beside Sam and put his arm around his shoulder. "I feel like a heel leaving her here."

"I know." Sam sighed. "She's not strong enough to travel far enough east or west right now, though, and you know she'll be so busy with therapy that we wouldn't get much time with her."

"I hate it when you play me back to myself." Harm tucked Sam's head under his chin. "But I love you for it, too."

Sam chuckled. It sounded more like a giggle when he heard it, but he refused to admit to giggling, even as a woman. "I love me for it, too."

"I'd make you pay for that if we weren't in public."

"Put it on my tab, sailor."

They sat in comfortable silence for 7 minutes or so before Captain Aramo came out to escort them to Mattie's room.

Mattie introduced them to her roommate, who had been injured in a suicide bombing in Iraq.

Valerie Hotchkiss pulled her upper body to attention in her wheelchair and saluted as best she could with limited arm mobility. "Good morning, Captain, Colonel." Her soft drawl placed her as a native of the deep South, probably Mississippi.

"At ease, Sergeant. Heroes need never work quite so hard to impress officers." Harm extended his hand to the young woman.

"Maybe not Navy heroes, sir, but I'm a Marine."

Mattie flashed a grin at Sam. "Good practice for living with you, Mac."

Sam nodded, catching the hero worship budding in Mattie's expression. "I can see Sgt. Hotchkiss will be an invaluable influence on you in more than a few ways." Sam certainly couldn't teach the teenager what it was like to live with a Marine; he was having enough trouble trying to _be_ a Marine.

An aide came in with Mattie's therapist and neurologist and left with Sgt. Hotchkiss, who waved her arms over her head like an athlete crossing the finish line in a race.

The therapist spoke first. "Good morning, Miss Grace. I'm Dr. Faust. Don't let the name fool you, I'm really very nice."

Mattie's face screwed up in confusion.

"Oh, right. You probably haven't read Goethe yet. I promise I'll tell you the story as we work." Dr. Faust's blue eyes sparkled as she looked first at Sam, then at Harm, and finally back at Mattie. "I specialize in spinal cord injury rehabilitation. I won't be working with you every session, but I will supervise your rehab very carefully and meet with you at least three times a week, probably five as you're getting started."

The other woman – a blonde with small green eyes and a smile Sam thought charming, though Mac would likely disagree, given the way the woman continued to eye Harm – cleared her throat. "I'm Dr. Johann."

Sam giggled. There was no way to call the noise he emitted anything else, despite his earlier resolve.

Faust looked at him with pursed lips that jerked up as she tried not to smile. "Yeah, we've heard it before, Colonel."

Even more impressed that the woman had figured out who he had to be, Sam nodded. "Sorry."

"May I?" Dr. Johann didn't seem to have a sense of humor. She did have eyes for Harm, though, and now Sam was starting to be bothered by it. He reached out to take Harm's hand and was surprised at how hard he pulled Sam into his side. If Mac was watching from 2015, she had to be pleased with that.

Dr. Johann's face went red for a moment before she took a deep breath and began to talk. "As I was saying, I'm Dr. Johann. I specialize in spinal cord injuries. I supervise Dr. Faust," Faust started at that but kept silent, "and her team as they devise your therapy and I will also be responsible for your medical care, things like pain medication, nutrition, and catheter management. We'll be changing your bowel management program to something called pulsed irrigation elimination, which we've found to be safer and healthier."

Harm blanched and Mattie's face squirmed at that news. Sam had once leaped into the body of a quadriplegic man with a 1950's era colostomy and had vivid memories of that particular indignity. To him, anything that didn't involve a bag sounded like a better alternative.

Dr. Johann waited a beat before she continued. "Miss Grace, you'll be working with a tutor from the DC school district to finish up your class work for the year in between your therapy sessions. From the x-rays, CT scans, and MRI films, I'm optimistic that we can get your upper body fully mobile within a couple of months."

"Upper body?" Mattie's voice broke.

"Upper body. We'll have to wait and see about your lower body, Miss Grace. There's still a lot of swelling around the spinal cord and it's very hard to tell if there's damage under the swelling. I think that there is, but I'd like to be wrong."

"Oh." Mattie's eyes flicked to Harm, then to Sam and Dr. Faust before they settled again on Dr. Johann. "So does that mean there's no permanent damage in the upper part of my spinal cord?"

Dr. Johann tipped her head toward Mattie. "We're pretty sure there's not. It's badly bruised from C-4 to T-9, which as you know is a long stretch, and there's still some significant swelling in places. But even if there is permanent damage, we think it's most likely at T-8 or T-9, so regardless, you should get some movement back in your arms."

Harm looked at the doctor. Sam knew Harm didn't realize how hard he was squeezing Sam's ribs as he asked, "Will she ever walk again?"

Dr. Faust answered. "It's not impossible. There are still too many unknowns, Captain. We'll know more once we've completed the full evaluation, but even then, we might be surprised"

Harm's face fell when the two doctors asked him to step outside, but Sam immediately volunteered to go with him if Mattie was okay with being alone with the doctors.

She looked first at Dr. Johann, then at Dr. Faust, before she sighed and said, "Go ahead, Mac. At least I can't fight back."

"Hey! I wouldn't fight-"

"Harm, the door is this way. We'll be right outside." Sam pulled Harm out of the room. "Dignity and modesty, remember?" He was sure that at some point, one of Harm's female friends had explained those all-important teenage concepts to him, even if it hadn't been Mac.

"Yeah."

An hour and 20 minutes later, they were ready to leave Mattie to her first therapy session.

"See you soon, kiddo," Harm said, his voice rough with tears as he held Mattie's hands between his.

Without the halo, Sam was sure Mattie would have nodded. "Memorial Day weekend, right?"

"Right."

"And hopefully I'll be able to go dress shopping by then, even if it isn't for long."

"If you can't, I'll bet we can arrange something." Harriet would know, Sam was sure. He glanced down at the phone on his hip when Harm wasn't looking. "We need to get moving, Harm. It's 1119."

"Okay." He kissed Mattie on both cheeks. "I love you."

"I love you, too. Go, so you don't stress Mac more than she needs to be."

"Yes, ma'am." He backed away, turned, and motioned toward the door. "I'll be . . ."

Sam nodded at him, then moved to sit on the edge of Mattie's bed. "Thanks, Mattie."

"I saw you wince. Do you think Harm is really okay with retiring?"

Sam pondered this for a moment. "No, Mattie, I don't. But I think he's decided that you and I are more important than his career, so he's going to work very hard to convince himself he's okay with it."

"Wouldn't it be easier for you to transfer out of JAG so both of you could stay in?"

Sam stared at her.

"What?"

"You're the second person who's made that suggestion this morning."

"Admiral Chegwidden?"

Sam wondered at the distaste he heard in Mattie's tone, but chose not to comment. Instead, he nodded. "I'm supposed to talk to him once I get out to San Diego. Actually, I have to talk to General Cresswell tomorrow, come to think of it."

"You should ask him about it."

"Not until I talk to AJ. I'd better go before Harm throws a tantrum out there."

Mattie laughed as best she could. "Yeah. Mac?"

"Yeah?"

"Would you buy me some of those tampons you recommended?"

Sam controlled a groan as he answered, "Absolutely. I'll bring them back tonight."

"Thanks. I love you, Mac."

Sam leaned down to kiss her cheek. "I love you, too, Mattie."


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

AJ Roberts wasn't a happy boy. He hated his little brother Jimmy because Jimmy had ruined three of his best comics. He hated his twin brother and sister because they took all of Mommy's time and he couldn't tell them apart most of the time anyway unless Mommy dressed Nicolette in pink. He hated that Daddy had a fake leg because Daddy wouldn't play basketball or baseball with him very often. He hated that Auntie Mac and Uncle Harm were leaving because they were the only adults who treated him like a real person instead of a little kid.

Most of all, he hated being a little kid because he could never stay mad for long before someone made him laugh, and today he just wanted to stay mad.

He was playing by himself with his imaginary friend Lou in the front yard when Auntie Mac and Uncle Harm pulled up in Uncle Harm's very cool Lexus SUV. That was another thing he hated – the family minivan. Everybody had green minivans. He wanted a silver Lexus like Uncle Harm. Maybe Uncle Harm wouldn't need his Lexus in London and he would give it to Daddy.

Uncle Harm got out of the Lexus and walked around to Auntie Mac's door. He opened it, then he leaned in. Auntie Mac's arms came out of the car and wrapped around Uncle Harm's back.

AJ hated watching adults kiss. It was gross. The only thing worse than watching Uncle Harm and Auntie Mac kiss was watching Mommy and Daddy kiss. Especially because kissing made yucky babies. Or sometimes kissing was part of making babies. Mommy and Daddy hadn't been clear about that when he asked before the icky twins were born.

_Wait a minute!_ Lou screamed at AJ in his head. _Uncle Harm and Auntie Mac are kissing?_

That was new.

That was big.

That was absolutely _awful._

AJ knew he couldn't marry Mommy, even though he didn't understand why. But he really, really, really wanted to marry Auntie Mac.

If Uncle Harm married Auntie Mac, AJ didn't think Uncle Harm would share nicely.

This was turning out to be as bad a day as the one in his favorite book, _Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day._

Or maybe even worse, because whoever was getting out of Uncle Harm's car was most definitely **_not_** Auntie Mac.

For one thing, Auntie Mac's legs were always smooth and had a nice shape to them. This person's legs were hairy like Daddy's good leg and shaped more like Uncle Mikey's legs than Auntie Mac's legs.

For another thing, Auntie Mac only came to right under Uncle Harm's chin. This person, who was clearly a man, came to just under his nose.

And Auntie Mac's eyes were brown. Not just any brown, but the same brown as the raw umber crayon in his box of 64. He knew because he had tried every brown in the box until he got it just right, according to Lou. This man's eyes were green.

He was wearing Auntie Mac's clothes, though. The t-shirt was one AJ and Jimmy had made with their very own iron-on hand prints for her birthday, though Mommy wouldn't let AJ put Lou's hands on it. It didn't look as nice on the man as it did on Auntie Mac. And the man certainly didn't look as good in those jean shorts as Auntie Mac did.

"Hey, AJ! How 'ya doin'?" Uncle Harm shouted at him.

"Um, okay, Uncle Harm." But it looked very weird for Uncle Harm to have his arm wrapped around a man dressed in Auntie Mac's clothes. Lou agreed.

Uncle Harm and the man who wasn't Auntie Mac stopped long enough to hug and kiss him, then walked up the lawn toward the front porch. AJ turned to watch.

Whoever was in Auntie Mac's clothes didn't look as good from the back as Auntie Mac, either, Lou told him.

A man dressed in ugly, bright clothes appeared in front of Uncle Harm, but Uncle Harm walked right through the man.

"Hey, watch where you're going there, Captain!" the new man shouted. He turned around.

AJ watched the man blow a smoke ring while he punched buttons on the calculator in his hand. "Hey, mister, you better get off our lawn before my daddy sees you."

The man looked up and jumped backward through a bush. "Maybe dropping by for lunch wasn't such a good idea after all."

"I told you so." That was Auntie Mac's voice, AJ was positive.

"Auntie Mac! Where are you?" he shouted. Lou shouted, too.

The man wearing Auntie Mac's clothes came running out of the house just as Auntie Mac's voice said, "It's a long story, AJ, and one you wouldn't believe anyway."

"I'm right here, AJ. What's wrong?" The man knelt down to face him.

"You're not Auntie Mac. Who is he and why can I hear Auntie Mac when I can't see her?" AJ pointed to the man in the ugly, bright clothes. Lou made a face at the man.

AJ heard both the man dressed in Auntie Mac's clothes and Auntie Mac sigh. Then they both said, "Oh, boy."


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

Harriet Sims Roberts knew something was wrong when Jimmy took one look at Mac and ran screaming out of the room.

"I am so sorry, Mac," she said as she ushered Mac and Harm into their spacious house. "Jimmy has been upset ever since we told him-"

"Auntie Mac!" AJ's scream from outside sent Mac back to the yard.

"I guess I'm chopped liver," Harm quipped, nudging Harriet forward.

"Hardly, Harm. If there's an airplane in that bag, AJ will be falling all over you in no time." She sighed. "Want a beer?"

"No, thanks. A diet Coke is fine."

Bud came down the stairs with one of the twins in each arm. "Com-Captain! I'm so glad you're here. Take Nicholas, would you?"

Harriet watched as her very capable husband transferred a squirming six month old to Harm, who hadn't entirely lost his trepidation with infants despite caring for both AJ and Jimmy over the years. But once Nicholas was safely ensconced in his arms, Harm looked down into the baby's eyes and smiled. Nicholas cooed his contentment and snuggled against Harm's shirt.

"I guess I pass the test."

"I'd say so, Harm. Let me go see what's wrong with Jimmy. Make yourself as comfortable as you can."

Harriet went into the boys' playroom and found her second son standing in the middle of the room heaving great silent sobs. He threw himself into her arms when she knelt down to him, but he didn't stop crying.

"Honey, what's wrong?"

"Au-au-auntie M-m-m-ac l-l-look fu-fu-fu-funny."

Harriet thought for moment before she came up with a logical reason for Jimmy's assertion. "You've never seen her with her hair down, honey. She's just got longer hair."

Jimmy looked up at her with what she swore was an exact copy of Bud's "You've lost your mind" expression. "N-no, Mommy," he said, taking a deep breath to calm himself. "Her a man."

Knowing that contradicting him would spark another round of tears or even a tantrum, she quelled her disbelief. It was patently ridiculous, of course, but almost-two year olds have active imaginations, particularly when they have older siblings who encourage such imaginations. "How do you know, Jimmy?"

He put his hands to his face just like he put his hands on Bud's face to test the shaving job every morning. "'Iskers."

"She had whiskers?"

"Him. Him 'iskers." Another advantage – or disadvantage – to an older sibling was better than average verbal ability for a child his age.

"Jimmy, Auntie Mac looks just like she always does, sweetie. I think your brother has been filling your head with nonsense again."

"No. 'Iskers. Big. No Auntie Mac." He plopped himself down on the floor at Harriet's feet and crossed his arms over his chest.

Deciding there was nothing more she could do for the moment and knowing the room was safe enough for him to be left alone in for a few minutes, Harriet turned on her heel and walked to the door. "Uncle Harm and Auntie Mac brought presents for you and we have cake for dessert, but you have to eat lunch first. When you're ready to come out, say so and someone will come get you." With that, she flipped the intercom switch to "on", backed out of the doorway, and latched the bottom half of the door in place. She expected Jimmy to beg to be let out immediately, but as she tiptoed up the hall, she could hear him muttering nonsense to himself.

_Albert Jethro Roberts, you are in so much trouble,_ she thought.

Speaking of AJ, he nearly bowled her over as he ran in the front door screaming for Uncle Harm and Daddy. Mac was right on his heels.

"What in heaven's name is wrong with him?" Harriet asked Mac.

Mac rolled her eyes. "If I told you, you wouldn't believe me. Bud might, but you wouldn't."

Bud and Harm came out of the den, each still carrying a twin. AJ moved between them when they stopped in the hall and pointed to Mac.

"Auntie Mac is a man. Lou says so, too."

Harm blushed. "AJ, um . . . how do I say this? I can tell you from personal experience that Auntie Mac is a woman. And who's Lou?"

Bud flashed a look at Harm that Harriet recognized as a typical male "Score!" response.

Harm shrugged and shook his head.

Mac laughed. "Not yet. But I am definitely a woman."

"Geez, Uncle Harm, you've met Lou, remember? He's my friend I play with when nobody else will play with me." AJ waved to the space next to him, then pointed at Mac. "You're a man. Your voice sounds like a man's voice. And there's another man in the front yard wearing very ugly, very bright clothes carrying a calculator. And I can hear Auntie Mac's voice but I can't see her."

Harriet glared at Bud. He paled.

"Maybe I let him watch too many episodes of 'Quantum Leap' last night," he admitted, hanging his head.

Mac coughed, but waved off any concern with a murmur of "pollen."

"Sam!" AJ pointed at Mac. "Al was in the front yard."

Mac kept coughing.

Harm looked back and forth between Mac and Bud.

Harriet tipped her head back against the stairway wall, barely controlling the urge to bang it repeatedly in hopes this craziness would go away when she awoke from her psychotic dream. "That's it, no more television with Daddy until summer comes, and next time, make sure Jimmy is asleep before you watch any of your science fiction. AJ, Auntie Mac is just fine. She's right here in this house where everyone can see her. And even if you don't believe me, pretend that you do so you don't scare your little brother anymore than he already is."

AJ nodded, but kept looking at Mac with narrowed eyes. "Yes, ma'am. I think Mom means it, Lou."

"Enough about Lou, AJ. Now that this is settled, can we please sit down to eat? Uncle Harm has a plane to catch."

Harm nodded toward the Toys 'R Us bag behind Mac. "And Uncle Harm brought planes to play with, too. Well, Auntie Mac and Uncle Harm."

AJ dived for the bag and extracted two wrapped presents. "Which one's mine?"

Mac smiled. "The Spongebob Squarepants package. The other is for Jimmy."

AJ's eyes brightened. "Cool! Mommy, can I go get Jimmy?"

Harriet heaved a sigh of relief. "Tell him he has a present, but he can only come out if he will be nice to Auntie Mac, okay? And don't tell him what you think."

"Yes, ma'am! Uh, no, ma'am." AJ tore off, leaving the boxes on the floor.

Harriet got the rest of the family and their guests to the dining room, where Nicholas and Nicolette had swings to settle into so everyone could eat unencumbered. From the kitchen where she poured drinks, she heard Mac ask Bud about "Quantum Leap."

"It's this really great show about time travel. 'Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett led an elite group of scientists into the desert to develop a top secret project known as "Quantum Leap." It's a Donald Bellisario show, you know, of 'Magnum, P.I.' fame?"

Mac laughed, to Harriet's ear a little nervously. "So you let AJ watch several episodes last night and that's why he thought I was a man?"

"Yeah. I am so sorry, ma'am. If I had realized . . ."

"No harm done, Bud."

Harriet heard Harm cough at that and wondered if Mac had intended the double entendre.

Jimmy and AJ dragged their presents in behind them from the hallway as Harriet carried a tray of drinks in from the kitchen. She went unnoticed as the two boys "oohed" and "ahhed" over their gifts, which were, she noted over Bud's shoulder, age-appropriate fighter jets.

Over the din of the dogfight her sons enacted, she called them to the table. "You can play later, guys. Let's eat."

"Aw, Mommy, can't we play for a few more minutes?" AJ asked her from the floor.

"Not now. Go wash your hands. Bud, would you take Jimmy?"

Bud stood up and scooped Jimmy from the floor behind him. "Sure, honey. Come on, guys. Mommy's got her admiral's voice on."

Harm laughed. "Admiral's voice?"

"AJ heard Admiral Chegwidden yelling in the office one day and told Bud that I sound like that when I'm bossing people around. Ever since, no one argues with the admiral's voice."

Harm's look at Mac sizzled across the table. "In our house, it will be Mommy's Marine voice. Even I jump at that one."

Harriet hoped that Mac's non-committal reply was related to the probability that she and Harm would have to adopt. Otherwise, she'd be tempted to buy into AJ's assertions because Mac almost never let an opportunity pass to one up Harm.


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

"What the hell were you thinking?" Mac didn't care that she was yelling at a superior officer. At the moment, the only thing she could credit Admiral Calavicci with was being a superior ass. "I told you there would be kids at Bud and Harriet's house."

Al waved his cigar around his head, creating a haze of smoke that wafted toward the vents in the ceiling of the waiting room. "Relax, Mac. Ziggy says there's less than a two percent chance that any of the adults will believe the kids."

"How often has Ziggy been wrong before?"

The cigar stopped moving. "With little kids? More than I'd like to admit. On the other hand, Sam did make a leap into a TV producer once and got a show started in the late 80's that explains anything related to Quantum Leap away as just another science fiction show, so there's hope that someone has seen the show with the kid."

Mac relaxed a little, though her anger still buzzed in her head. "Bud's a sci-fi nut. If anyone has seen this show, it's him. And knowing him, he's watched it with AJ. This is the man who named his second son James Kirk, after all."

The ever-present hand-held computer beeped. Al picked it up, read it, then turned it so Mac could see it. "Ziggy says less that one percent now."

"Doesn't change the fact that it was stupid to go to start with."

"You know, I really preferred it when the hosts never came around enough to know what was going on."

"And maybe the next leap will put Sam into someone who isn't as tuned in as I am and you can go back to mollycoddling your victims." _Jackass._

"Victims?" Al dropped his cigar on his shirt, which sent him into spasms trying to extinguish the smoldering ashes before they damaged the hideous garment.

"That's what we are, really. We're brought here against our will and forced to sit idly by while someone else controls our destiny. Why me? If stopping this terrorist act against the UN is so important, why not the leader of whatever cell is responsible for the overall command? Why not the head of UN security or the Secretary of Homeland Defense? Why am I being denied the chance to act on my feelings for the man I love when we're finally on the same page?" She heard how shrill her voice had become and lowered her tone a little. "I like Sam, honestly, I do. But he's not me, and now he's living my life and my fiancé _doesn't even know the difference._"

"He'd be suspicious by now if you hadn't had the chance to brief Sam, Mac. Consider it a blessing. Sam has inhabited bodies of men and women married for a lot longer than you and Captain Rabb have been partners without raising suspicions – and that without any briefing from the host or hostess at all. How sad is that?"

"Your wife would be suspicious immediately because Sam couldn't possibly act like you. He'd be too nice."

"Are you always this vicious when you're pissed off?"

Mac gave him a saccharin smile. "I'm not pissed off. You don't want to see me pissed off, Admiral. And before you try to threaten me with disciplinary action, if Sam accomplishes his goal, we're never going to meet. And if he doesn't, it won't matter, will it?"

Al laughed. Uproariously. For a long time.

For the life of her, Mac couldn't figure out what she had said that was so funny.

"Colonel Mackenzie, if we're both still around when my wife dies, I'm going to do my damnedest to seduce you. You amuse me."

Mac snapped. She took Al's arm and flipped him over, pinning him down under her knee while she held his arm behind his head.

"You're pissed off now, aren't you?" He sounded pinched and in pain.

"Sexual harassment tends to do that to me. Admiral."

"Point taken."

She let him get up. "Admiral Calavicci, I will do everything possible to make this leap as short as possible. But let's be very clear that I am not here for your amusement. I consider myself TAD to this decade and this project and if you had any idea how bizarre that sounds to me, you'd be considering committing me to a mental institution. Be that as it may, I will devote myself to this mission as fully as I devote myself to any assignment I receive from duly appointed authorities." She took a deep breath and put her finger under the admiral's nose. "I will not tolerate any inappropriate comments about my appearance or my gender, made to me here or to Sam in 2005. I let you get away with 'good girl' once because I didn't quite have my bearings, but now I know exactly what I need to do and have a pretty good idea how to do it. Are we clear? Sir."

She was pleased to see the old man come to attention before he answered. "Crystal, Colonel. Thank you for your straightforwardness." He smiled and gestured toward the door to the archives. "Shall we get on with the mission of giving Sam enough evidence to stop a terrorist plot so we can get you home?"

Mac relaxed. "Yes, sir." She followed him into the library and sat down at a terminal. She didn't have to like her superior officer to do what she needed to do to end this nightmare that was all too real and get back to the man who loved her, now that she knew for sure.


	13. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

Saying good-bye to Harm was the hardest thing Sam had yet to do in this leap.

"I can't believe it's already time to go," Harm said as they waited in line to check him in for his flight to JFK and then on to Heathrow.

"It seems like just yesterday we were saying hello." Sam couldn't help but grin at that, even if Harm would never know just how close to the truth it was.

"In the Rose Garden of all places. Would you be unhappy with me if you found roses on your new desk first thing Monday morning, Mac?"

Now he laughed. "Harm, you can never go wrong with roses. As long as they're the right color, of course."

Harm blinked. "Color?"

Sam didn't know how he remembered it, but the colors of roses and their meanings had always stayed with him, kind of like the plot and characters from _Some Like it Hot_. "White usually means innocence or purity. Orange and coral mean desire. Light pink means admiration, sweetness, or joy, but sympathy if sent for funerals. Dark pink means appreciation or gratitude. Yellow means friendship. Red means passion, though a single red rose means 'I love you'."

"That's a lot to choose from." Harm wrapped his arm around Sam's waist and pulled him close. "You know, I've never sent anyone a single red rose before."

"You can't go wrong with it if you mean it." They inched forward in the line. "I'm glad the self check-in system is down. I want the time."

"Me, too."

They stumbled forward again in the line as Harm's lips descended to meet the lips Sam knew Harm thought were Mac's. Sam thought of Donna and tried to return the kiss as Donna once returned his public displays of affection – with gentle, sweet passion that promised much more for another time. It was still very strange. He backed away after a moment and pressed his thumb to Harm's lips.

"A down payment on another time," Sam promised.

Harm nodded. In a whisper against Sam's ear, he asked, "You know, Mac, would I be out of line to suggest that we just wait until our honeymoon? The way things are going, we're only going to get four or five nights together before the wedding anyway and they're likely to be rushed or interrupted."

That was the best idea Sam had heard in a long while, but he knew he couldn't sound too eager. He stood on tiptoe to whisper back, and wished that his height came with the body of his host. Even two inches would help. "You mean, you can actually wait, now that we've missed our chance this time? I don't know if I can have that much restraint, Harm."

"I just think it's going to be too stressful over Memorial Day and unless we get really lucky, I won't be relieved until July 1st or even later. If that's the case, by the time I get to San Diego, we find a house that Mattie can live in, and get back for the wedding rehearsal on the 8th, there's just not going to be time to do it right. And baby, I want to make sure our first time is beautiful."

Sam wondered what Mac would have thought of those words. He wanted to cry at the sacrifice he knew Harm was making. Maybe only a man could truly understand. Without something to say, he kissed Harm again, thinking of Donna as he did so, and let the silence between them settle comfortably.

In another few minutes, Harm was a the front of the line, then he was checked in and his luggage on its way to the loading ramps after passing the TSA screening. Sam walked him to the end of the passenger screening line, which for business class showed a waiting time of 35 minutes.

"This is where I get off," Sam said, motioning to the TICKETED PASSENGERS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT sign at the beginning of the ropes. "Call me when you get to London?"

"I'll call you from New York, too." Harm set his briefcase between his legs and wrapped his arms around Sam, nuzzling the hair that fell around his neck and shoulders. "You're missing another t-shirt, by the way. I have it in my back pack so I can have you close by."

"Another t-shirt?"

"You take my Navy shirts to sleep in, I take the few Marine Corps t-shirts you still sleep in." Harm flushed red. "To, um, sleep in."

Sam laughed. He remembered Donna doing the same thing when they were dating. Somehow, that was more intimate than their sex until after they were married. "How long have you been doing this?"

Harm leaned back to look into Sam's eyes. "How long have you?"

"I asked first."

"Since the _Watertown_," he admitted with a sigh. "It was the first time I had the guts to do it, though I thought about it in Japan."

Sam snickered as he tried to remember what Mac had said about her collection of Harm's t-shirts. Was it Russia or Japan or on the _Watertown_ that first required her to "borrow" a shirt and forget to give it back? The love in her voice when she said whatever it was helped Sam know just how deeply she felt for Harm. "It was, uh, Russia. That shirt you figured you left at the hotel in Moscow after we found out where your dad was . . ."

Harm kissed Sam, long and hard. "You've always been six or eight steps ahead of me, Sarah."

"Yeah, well . . . my head isn't so hard." Sam meant that as a double entendre and he was sure that if Mac were in this body now they'd be headed somewhere very private for a quickie. As it was, he felt the arousal of the female body in unnerving and somewhat nauseating ways and figured that the better part of valor was to leave now with both his own and Mac's dignity intact. "I love you."

"I love you. I'll call you later." Harm kissed Sam one more time, more gently this time, and let go to join the line, which now said 40 minutes of waiting time.

They must have looked back at each other 20 times before the line snaked around a pillar and Harm vanished from his sight. Sam hoped Mac was the type to look back at moments like this. All he knew was that the walk out to the short-term parking lot took forever, or so it seemed.

"Hey, Sam." Al materialized beside the Lexus when Sam turned the corner at the end of the row.

Rather than speak, Sam raised his arm in a sort of half wave and increased his pace a little. Not until he was in the car and buckled in did he speak to Al. "Get in, Al."

"Oh, right." The hologram slipped through the closed passenger side door and sat down, which looked more natural in the SUV than it had in the Corvette the night before. "You know all those martial arts you've learned over the years?"

"Kind of." Sam knew that his instincts kicked in on occasion, allowing him to defend himself or others with moves that his hosts usually didn't know.

"Colonel Mackenzie is well versed." Al held up his left hand, which bore a splint on two fingers.

"Let me guess. She didn't like the 'Al Calavicci Charm School' method of dealing with a woman."

"Pretty much. And she cut me no slack for being in my 80's, either. Damned doctors and their exercise and diet regimens."

Sam hid his smile. He had vivid snapshots of an episode long before the first jump when Donna had raged at Al's behavior. Of course, he had been in a leap then, as Donna's research assistant Josh, and he was quite sure that the real Josh wouldn't have understood her fury. Josh, he remembered, emulated Al in nearly everything from dress to choice of cigars. It had not been a fun leap for so many reasons.

"Al, why are you here?" He started the car and backed out of the parking space as Al chewed on his unlit cigar.

"What, I can't just stop by to visit a friend?" he asked after a minute of silence.

Sam glanced at him. Project Quantum Leap had evolved over the years so that it was technically possible for the hologram to be active all the time, and the audio capability for others in the project to communicate at will had proved helpful more than once in the two "real" years since the technology went live, but Al was still cost-conscious enough to make his appearances pointed and usually limited his audio surveillance to critical encounters.

Except for lunch today, which was just unnecessary and dangerous, but he was pretty sure Mac had reinforced that point in 2015 along with her lesson in treating a female Marine.

"Er, right." Al lit the cigar with some difficulty as Sam paid the parking fee and maneuvered the Lexus toward the highway. "Mac says you need to start with Admiral Chegwidden."

Sam had already figured that out. More accurately, Admiral Chegwidden had said as much at breakfast. "The retired admiral's club?"

"Yes. AJ is good friends and adversaries at this point with my cousin, Edward, who is the Secretary of Defense at the moment."

"Edward Sheffield? He's the one who pushed our funding through the Senate the first time, right?" Sam had leaped into the life of one of Sheffield's staffers three or four leaps ago to make sure that the funding was approved. The chief of staff of another powerful senator had been taken over by one of the evil leapers. Sam didn't dwell on what might have happened had he not been successful in convincing that senator directly of the importance of Project Quantum Leap. It was too depressing.

"Right. Mac is still working on a way for you to get the investigation started from San Diego. She thinks she's on to something that was never fully explained during the hearings. Hopefully, she'll have that thread for you by Monday."

Sam looked over as Al blew a smoke ring over his head that floated out of the holographic projector's range with an eerie dissolution effect. "I'm sure the doctors told you to stop smoking and drinking."

"Imagine how good I'd look if I had."

Sam laughed. "Right. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Don't forget Mattie's tampons." Al's grin vanished last, like some Cheshire Cat become human for a moment.

The audio channel had been open all day long. Damn him and his wasteful mood today, anyway.

"Al is laughing here," Mac griped from somewhere above him as he entered the drug store a while later. "When you get tampons for Mattie, you're going to need them for us, too. This is going to take more than five days."

He groaned. Yet another thing he was thankful not to have experienced in all his leaps into women over the years, though he could have done without the three experiences of being pregnant along the way. Al had told him once about being the victim of a date rape, but apparently he leaped in after the actual rape. Perhaps his psyche had protected him from that one by not remembering it at all.

"If you'd be more comfortable with pads . . ."

There was no way he could respond to that out loud. He hoped she saw his nod in the control room, if Al had the visual connection open for her.

"Okay. I'll tell you which brand when you're in the aisle. Deep breath, Sam. Women do this all the time. And we're far less embarrassed to buy this stuff than most men are to buy condoms."

Without making eye contact with anyone, he checked the overhead signs for "Feminine Hygiene" and scurried toward the back of the store. The tampons were pretty easy to find, thankfully, but Mac said the packaging had changed on the pads she wanted, so he had to stand there holding packages up at strange angles so the visual observation channel could pick up the wording for Mac to read. He prayed that no one entered the aisle before she made her choice.

The fifth package turned out to be the right brand but not the right absorbency, but that was easy enough to fix and with a long sigh, Sam went to the register to pay. The woman at the register wore a colorful turban and lots of jewelry that looked Caribbean to Sam. He didn't like the way she looked at him while she processed his transaction; it would be just his luck to get a clairvoyant practitioner of Vodun or some other mystical religion that allowed her to penetrate the hologram.

"Wishful thinking or last vestiges?" the woman asked as she put his purchases in a bag.

Thinking fast, Sam murmured, "I lost a bet to my wife," and scuttled out of the store before the woman could ask anything else. Bad enough to hear her laughing so hard.

"Nice save," Al said from the passenger seat a moment later. He blew three successive smoke rings, each one bigger and more circular than the last.

"Is society getting weirder or is it just my luck to run into people who can see me more often these days?" Sam slammed the Lexus into reverse and backed up, nearly hitting an MG that came whipping around the corner without slowing down. "Damned woman driver!"

"Watch it, Sam," Mac said. "Give me enough reason and I'll find a way to do to your body what I did to Al."

"Right. Sorry, Mac. Vestigial male stupidity."

"Well, for a vestigially stupid male, you did okay saying good-bye to my man."

"Thanks. I take it you've been listening in without comment."

"Al wouldn't turn on the microphone for fear someone would hear us or see him. But you didn't need my help. Good memory about the t-shirt."

"Thanks."

Al harrumphed. "Would you mind including me here?"

"Yes!" Sam laughed when he heard Mac chime in with him.

It wasn't long into the hospital dinner with Mattie and Jen that Mac must have elbowed Al fairly hard after he made an inappropriate comment about Jen. Sam didn't hear Al again until after Jen dropped him off at the B&B, though Mac helped at several points both with Mattie and Jen. Girl talk was not and likely never would be a strong suit of Sam's.

"Well, that was entertaining." The hologram appeared with a flourish in the middle of the king-sized bed.

"Al, shut up. What day is it there?" Sam went into the bathroom and started running water in the tub. His back – Mac's back – really did hurt and this time he wasn't faking the cramps.

Al followed him into the bathroom. "February 15. Why?"

"Go have a post Valentine's Day celebration or something. And let Mac get some sleep. I think I can handle things here until tomorrow morning when I have to call the general."

"Sam?" Al looked genuinely concerned for a moment.

"Al, I'm tired, my body hurts in places I never knew could hurt before, and my head is spinning. You and I both know this is going to be a long leap. So just let me be tonight so I can get myself ready for the next few weeks, okay?" He pointed toward the door.

"Fine." The cigar drooped before Al faded away.

Sam just had the tub full enough and at a comfortable temperature and had stripped down to the uncomfortable underwear women were required to wear by convention when Al reappeared.

"AL!"

"Hubba, hubba, Sa-AAAAUUUGGGGGH!" Al winked out of existence.

"Sorry, Sam." Mac's tense voice had an edge of glee to it. "Al won't be joining you for a couple of days, I'm afraid. Badly sprained ankle from a fall, you see."

"Mmm, I see. Give him my best and tell him he deserves every painful minute of his recovery."

"I will. Oh, and Sam?"

"Yes, Mac?"

"Make sure you take my pill every day between 8 and midnight. Neither of us will like the consequences if you don't."

"Pill?"

Al moaned in the background. Mac sighed. "Pill. As in _the pill_. Round lavender container in my makeup bag. Just take them in order. Don't miss one."

Sam looked in the cosmetic bag, found the pills, and noted with annoyance that there were only three left before the white ones started. He remembered what the white ones meant from Donna. "Oh, boy."


	14. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13** (1 May 2005)

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

Sam had already called a cab for Reagan National Sunday morning by the time Harm called from London.

"It's about time, Captain Rabb," he said, the cell phone tucked against his cheek as he zipped the last of Mac's bags.

"We had to circle Heathrow for over two hours due to rain, Lieutenant Colonel Mackenzie."

Sam supposed if he really were a woman, Harm's tone would have sent shivers down her spine. His spine. Whatever. He could get something back, though. "I'm sorry. That person exists only in the past, Captain. You will address me by my proper rank and title, thank you, and you'll salute me when appropriate."

Harm laughed. "I knew it was too good to last. They backdated the promotion board, didn't they?"

"Yes."

"God, I miss you, Colonel." He stressed the title with a smile in his tone Sam recognized from yesterday.

"I know. I miss you, too. It was lonely in this bed last night." Sam remembered Donna saying that to him once while he was on a funding trip to DC. It had made his heart ache for her.

"I guess I was lucky to be sleeping in an uncomfortable seat on a plane, then."

"Yeah. Do you want a call from the airport or one from your mom's house?"

"Mom's house is fine. She'll want to talk to me anyway. Besides, I don't think I'll be getting much sleep tonight. My chief of staff met me here at baggage claim with a stack of cases my predecessor wants me to be ready to discuss first thing in the morning."

Sam smiled into the phone, even though he knew Harm couldn't see it. "I'd rather have your reading than mine. Cresswell is sending a messenger to meet me at the ticket counter with copies of all the active case files in the Southwest and Sierra Judicial circuits." He didn't say he'd be speed reading the UCMJ and relevant sections of the US Code, too. "Listen, my cab should be here any minute. I love you, Harm."

"I love you, Sarah. I'll talk to you later."

Something in the way he said "Sarah" sent another shot of warmth up his spine. He decided that Mac's body was just programmed to respond that way to that word from that man.

"Later, Harm."

The rest of the day passed in a blur of cabs, luggage, planes, and page upon page of boring legal documents as he traversed the United States. He stumbled off the plan with numb legs and made his way to baggage claim, where Frank Burnett and Trish Rabb Burnett met him with open arms and a key to the guest house on their property.

"How many bags do you have, Mac?" Frank pointed to the carousel.

"Two. I bet they'll be the only Marine Corps green bags with rainbow luggage straps." That had struck Sam as delightfully funny when he saw the suitcases sitting in the trunk of the Corvette Friday night.

A few minutes later, Frank flashed a smile as he set two bags down beside Trish. "You win, Mac. You only do that when you travel in civvies, though, right?"

"Most of the time, I travel with just carry-on bags if I can manage. I am so grateful to you both for all of this." Sam spoke for Mac and for himself.

"Oh, honey, it's the very least we can do," Trish said, draping her arm around his shoulders, "and you know we would do it whether Harm finally got his act together or not."

Sam smiled at Mac's future mother-in-law. "Even if I had turned him down?"

Frank answered that one as he led them out the double doors. "Especially then. We'd be able to plead his case."

The Burnetts doted on their future daughter-in-law like Sam wished his own parents had been capable of doting on Donna. As both a disinterested observer and an intimate participant in the bonding process, Sam could see that the main difference came down to how Trish and his mother dealt with losses suffered just a little more than 3 months apart in late 1969 and early 1970. And, perhaps, he thought on Sunday evening as he spoke to Harm's grandmother, Sarah Rabb, by phone, in the difference between losing a husband and losing a child.

Sarah, who had lost each in combat, said as much when she admitted to being glad that Harm was finally surrendering his flight status permanently. "Sarah, sweetheart, I don't want you to ever lose your husband for any reason. But if you do, know that we all would want you to find happiness again, like Trish has."

"What about you, Sarah?" How weird would Mac feel addressing and being addressed by someone with the same first name?

The elder Sarah laughed, a low, rich sound that reminded Sam of Harm's gentle chuckles. "Oh, honey, I've had my chances over the years, but I'd have had to give up too much. All my gentleman suitors required me to give up the farm to marry them, and it just wasn't worth it. Not that I didn't do my unfair portion of stringing a few of them along for the other . . . _benefits._" A sudden, unwelcome image of octogenarians having sex flitted through Sam's mind at Sarah's stress on the word "benefits" and he swallowed to settle the burst of nausea in his gut. He was pretty sure the nausea was all in his head, too, and not really in the stomach of Mac's body – a disturbing sensation that thankfully happened very rarely.

"I'll bet you've never told Harm any of this," he said when he could talk.

"Oh, heavens no, girl. Can you just imagine the scandal if Harm ever realized that his beloved grandmother enjoyed sex as much as he does?"

Sam laughed, knowing that Harm's reaction would be ten times or more as bad as his a moment ago. "Yes."

"But as much as you can move on from losing a husband, you never really get over it. Losing a child is even worse, no matter what the age." She sighed on her farm in Pennsylvania and Sam heard something more than the loss of Harm, Sr., in her tone. "I don't know if Harm even knows that his grandfather and I had another child before his father was born. We buried our daughter before she even drew a breath."

Sam's heart twisted, even though the death happened over 60 years ago. "I'm so sorry."

"Thank you, dear. Pamela's death still hurts as much as Harm, Sr.'s death, just in different ways. The wounds never really heal, they just scab over, and sometimes it's years between new bleeding and sometimes it's days. I bring this up because Harm told me a little bit about your endometriosis, Sarah. I hope you know that not one of us – not Harm, not Trish, not me – is at all worried about the bloodline. If you and Harm decide that it's safer for your health or easier on your relationship to adopt when the time comes, we'll be right here for you just like we will be here if the 4 percent chance works out."

Hoping that Mac heard that somehow, Sam swallowed hard and said the only thing that came to mind. "Thank you, Sarah. That means a lot."

The woman on the other end chuckled. "It's meant to. And please, dear, call me Gram. It's very strange to be calling each other by the same name, don't you think?"

"Yes, Gram, I do." Sam hoped the older woman lived long enough to dote on several great grandchildren, be they Harm's, Sergei's, or both.

In the guesthouse that night, Mac instructed Sam on the proper way to press and dress Marine Class A uniforms as they talked about the very strong lead she had pulled for him to follow in the next few days.

"It didn't come out until last week – I mean, literally, 9 February 2015 – but nearly 50 kilos of VX nerve agent went missing from the Deseret Chemical Depot in May 2005. Or will go missing, whatever. That's just before the VX destruction phase ends on 2 June, by the way, and the initial reports will indicate that the missing containers were actually listed on the original manifest twice."

"Deseret is an Army facility, Mac. What jurisdiction would you have?"

Mac was apparently pacing the confines of the control room, as Al's holographic head and cigar kept sweeping from one side of the room to the other with a wolfish grin plastered across his face. Neither the broken fingers nor the sprained ankle had taught Al the lesson Mac had been trying to instill, obviously – it seemed to Sam that the fight had only made Al's lust worse. "The missing containers are Naval ordinance under the nominal control of the Bureau of Naval Weaponry until certified as destroyed, even if the Army has physical custody of them."

Sam sighed and sat down on the bed with Mac's plethora of ribbons and her uniform jacket in hand. "Well, that certainly sounds like a great lead and there's definitely jurisdiction, but how do I follow it legitimately?"

Mac sighed in response. "Legitimacy isn't an issue. The letter I will write declining to sign off on the investigation and listing my concerns is what got leaked first last week. The problem is breaking through the levels of classification fast enough to help me – uh, you – back then."

"Can't you talk to the JAG directly? Wait, or have Al do it? We're talking about a major world changing event here, Mac."

Al spoke, startling Sam, who had thought the old admiral had been more intent on ogling Mac than paying attention to the conversation. "That might be a good thought in other circumstances, Sam. Certainly, the JAG has clearance enough to know about the existence of Quantum Leap. However . . ."

"What?"

After a moment of silence, Mac finished Al's thought. "Sam, I've been the JAG since 2010."


	15. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14 **(16 February 2015)

_SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC._

Vice President AJ Chegwidden stared at the Director of the CIA. It was a familiar sensation, as was the desire to break the man's nose with a well-placed right hook. Of course, he'd already done that once, nearly 20 years ago now, when then Special Agent Clayton Webb had placed two of JAG's most valuable officers in mortal danger under the guise of allowing Harmon Rabb, Jr., to find out what happened to his father.

"Mr. Vice President, sir, you and I both know that General Mackenzie Rabb is the best qualified person to prosecute this case." Clayton Webb shifted in his chair. "She can read the original documents, not just the translations provided to us. She can question witnesses in their own languages, or at least understand their answers without the translations if the court requires her to examine them in English. She didn't buy the duplicate count theory to start with."

"I know." Her recalcitrance at signing off on that investigative report had led the Office of Naval Intelligence to renege on an offer to make her the CO of Naval Intelligence – Europe so that Harm could stay in the Navy, too. AJ wondered how the world might have been different with Mac working in the intelligence world, so talented was she at finding connections others missed.

Just yesterday, she had been in his office here in the OEOB, thundering away at the stupidity of the chain of command 10 years ago in white washing the disappearance of 50 kilograms of VX nerve gas from the Deseret Chemical Depot and at whichever incompetent nincompoops in her own office or at the CIA or both had given documents and spoken out of turn to reporters at _The New York Times_ and _Newsweek_. "Another week, AJ, and we would have gone public with charges for seven American military officers and a petition to the ICJ to bring charges against two dozen foreign nationals. Now, I have to re-vet everything before I can go forward. Five fricking years down the drain." AJ had kept his smile to himself; Mac never remembered to call him "Mr. Vice President" in private, but she certainly wouldn't cross the vulgarity line.

"Will you talk to her? Get her to transfer jurisdiction to federal court and step down to take the case as a special prosecutor?"

"You seem to think I have extraordinary powers, Director Webb. I'm just the Vice President. I'll have to get permission from the President and the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman and the CNO before I can even speak to her officially." It was a stall; AJ hoped Webb didn't know just how much unprecedented authority he actually possessed in this intensely security conscious administration.

"Then do it, sir. Mac is the only one who can stop them by exposing them to the light." Webb sighed. "And she's the only one who can convince Harm to be on the prosecution team. We need him, too, sir."

Harm had twice served as a special prosecutor in the years since his retirement, once investigating improprieties in the DOD Office of Special Research and Development and once tracing the source of a major intelligence leak within the Department of Homeland Security. His reputation as a fair and honest investigator almost matched his reputation as an unorthodox yet hugely successful private defense attorney specializing in battered woman's syndrome cases.

"You're right about that, too."

"So you'll talk to them?"

"I'll talk my way along the chain. I can't promise anything beyond that."

Webb scowled, but nodded anyway. "I guess that's the best I can hope for, then. Will you be at the briefing tomorrow morning?"

"Teleconference. I've got several appearances in California later today and tomorrow." He always sat in on the president's National Intelligence briefings these days, however the technology made it possible. Too much had happened for him not to.

Webb left, closing the door behind him with a nearly inaudible click. AJ punched his intercom button. "Tiner, get me General Mackenzie Rabb, please."

"Aye, sir."

AJ smiled. One perk he really enjoyed about being the Vice President was handpicking his personal staff. It wasn't a hard sell for Commander Jason Tiner to become his chief of staff, particularly when the younger man realized he could remain eligible for retirement benefits by transferring to the active reserves.

A few moments later, Tiner's voice interrupted the thick silence of his thoughts. "Line one, Mr. Vice President."

"Thank you." AJ picked up the receiver and punched the appropriate button on his phone. "Thanks for taking my call, General."

Mac's silvery laugh floated across the wires. "Like I would ever not take your call, sir. What can I do for you – I'm assuming it's business rather than personal."

"Alas, yes. Mac, if you could prosecute the 2005 UN bombing cases yourself, both here in the States in federal court and at the ICJ, would you?"

"That depends, sir. What's available for me in the Marines after I leave JAG to do so?"

AJ smiled. "What do you want?"

"Chief of Naval Intelligence."

He knew why. Housecleaning would be first on her list. "I might be able to pull that off, but I'll have to have your indictment as leverage."

He heard a pen scratching on paper and imagined her sitting at his old desk in the beautiful office in Falls Church. "Done, but your eyes and Tiner's only until you clear any name through me, sir."

"Absolutely." She invited him to six-year old Angelica's ballet recital and Frankie's space-themed eighth birthday party before another call came in for him. He would rather have talked more about the miracle children he considered his granddaughter and grandson than the tedious business of education reform speeches, but duty often outweighed family these days.


End file.
